The five
centuries of Ottoman domination held back the historical development of the
Bulgarian people and caused enormous and lasting demographical, economic,
political and cultural damage. Islamisation and Turikicisation tore apart
the martyred nation which had been subjected to long physical annihilation.
At the time when Renaissance had reached its peak in civilised Europe, in
its south-eastern part children were taken away from their mothers to become
janissaries and be trained to kill even their parents. While the Christian
states were warring with each other the Ottoman conquerors besieged Vienna
in 1683; it was only then that measures were taken to unite the forces and
check the dangerous invasion. The continuous contradictions between the
Great Powers however was a stumbling block to the full liberation of the
Balkan Peninsula. After the victorious Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878 the
San Stefano Peace Treaty, which crowned the liberation of almost the entire
Bulgarian nation, was revised at the Berlin Congress so that Macedonia and
Adrianople Thrace were again placed under the sultan's rule.

On the
eve of the First Balkan War 1,210,000 Bulgarians lived in the Macedonian
area and another 350,000 — in Adrianople Thrace. [1] The
unequal struggle headed by the Internal Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary
Organisation reached its climax during the Ilinden-Preobrazhenie Uprising of
1903 which was cruelly suppressed by the Turkish troops. Tens of thousands
of refugees set out for Bulgaria seeking survival and protection.

Even
though the neighbouring Balkan states protected the interests of their
compatriots, living within the boundaries of the Ottoman Empire, the
mistrust inherited from previous centuries prevented them from reaching an
acceptable agreement. It was only in the autumn of 1911, after Italy had
opened a front in the Ottoman provinces of Tripolitania and Cirenaica, that
tough negotiations commenced with Serbia at the Bulgarian diplomacy's
initiative. Having overcome numerous difficulties these negotiations brought
about an allied treaty under the patronage and arbitration of the Russian
Emperor Nikolay II (February 29, 1912). The last tense negotiations between
Bulgaria and Greece concluded with the signing of a defence alliance (May
16, 1912). A verbal agreement was reached with Montenegro. As the strongest
of the member states, Bulgaria headed the Balkan Alliance. The military
conventions, drafted later, assigned the key role to the Bulgarian Army
since it had to advance along the main strategic line towards the capital of
the Ottoman Empire, Istanbul (Constantinople). For its part the Sublime
Porte considered it to be its major enemy.

The
massacres of the Bulgarian population by the Turkish authorities in Stip and
Kocani roused public opinion in Bulgaria. In the summer of 1912 a wave of
protest meetings swept the country, demanding either radical reforms in the
so called 'European Turkey' or calling to arms. In early September 1912 the
Sublime Porte ordered the mobilisation of 100,000 reserves in Adrianople
Thrace and their concentration at the Bulgarian frontier. The imminent
danger made the Bulgarian government declare nationwide mobilisation of the
armed forces on September 17, 1912 which aroused unprecedented support
throughout the country. Those wishing to participate in the liberation march
far exceeded the quantity of available weapons. A total of 600,000 men
marched under the banners.

According to an agreement reached between the allies the

6

Turkish
ambassadors to Sofia, Belgrade and Athens were presented a joint note
demanding administrative autonomy in the regions inhabited by Bulgarians,
Serbs, Greeks and Montenegrins. The Sublime Porte did not bother to answer
but instead broke off diplomatic relations with the Balkan allies who had
dared raise the question of rights before their former masters. On October
4, the Turkish High Command ordered their troops to enter Bulgaria. On the
morning of October 5, Bulgaria and its allies declared war on the
neighbouring empire though many military experts in Europe predicted their
defeat.

In the
fierce fighting for Lozengrad (October 9-10, 1912) the Bulgarian soldiers
won their first major victory causing the enemy's left wing to flee. It was
once again proved that valour and confidence for the right cause can succeed
over an enemy armed with the most up-to-date weapons. Having drawn fresh
reserves from Asia Minor the Turkish High Command decided to check the
Bulgarian advance along the Lule Burgas-Bounarhisaar defence line. A general
fighting broke out between the 1st and 3rd Bulgarian armies and the 1st and
2nd eastern armies. The war eventually turned in favour of the Balkan
Alliance. The enemy armies were defeated and sustained losses amounting to
30,000 killed and wounded with 2,800 taken prisoners, 42 guns, and a
considerable number of rifles and ammunition. The Bulgarian armies' victory
cost 20,162 killed and wounded. The enemy recovered from the terrible blow
at the Catalca fortified position 40 km away from Bosporus.

After
the fighting was over a medical commission investigated the circumstances of
those wounded and caught by the enemy and reported that they had been killed
in the most atrocious way. [2]

war was
waged by the enemy in an attempt to keep its capital. The advancing
Bulgarian troops came across bodies of cholera victims thrown into wells
thus becoming the primary source of the horrible epidemic. [3]
The cholera epidemic took its toll of 3,000 Bulgarian soldiers and disabling
18,000 men. On October 31 the grand vizier Kyamil Pasha contacted Tsar
Ferdinand with the request for an armistice and preliminary peace. In an
attempt to dictate peace in the capital of the defeated enemy the Bulgarian
monarch ordered the attack on the Catalca position. On November 4th and 5th
the 1st and 3rd armies attempted to break through the enemy fortifications
but failed due to the lack of heavy artillery, the spread of the cholera
epidemic and the irregular supply of foodstuffs and ammunition.

Arising
from the peace treaty signed in Catalca on November 20, a peace conference
was held in London on December 3rd. A conference of the Great Powers'
ambassadors was concurrently held under the chairmanship of the British
Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey. The series of proposals and
counter-proposals made it clear that the Sublime Porte would neither
withdraw to Midye-Rodosto or to Midye-Saros Bay nor did it intend to give up
Adrianople. Due to the breaking of direct negotiations the Great Powers were
able to interfere with a note of January 4, 1913 in which they advised the
surrender of Adrianople. On January 9 a Supreme State Council was convened
in Istanbul. It endorsed the above note and the conclusion of the armistice.
On the following day the Young Turks staged a coup d'etat. The belligerent
pan-Turkic adherents felt confident enough to tip the balance in their
favour. The military operations were resumed on January 21, 1913.

The
enemy marched from the Bulair fortified position on the Gallipoli Peninsula
but in a bloody battle it was checked

and
driven back by the troops of the 4th army and sustained losses of 6,000
killed. At the same time the landing at Sarkoy was routed by the Macedonian-Adrianople
voluntary corps. Outraged by their defeat the Turks killed all the wounded
and captives in the presence of the Young Turks' leader Enver Bey.
[4] At the same time the enemy's wounded and captives were
taken care of on an equal footing with the Bulgarian soldiers. Officers were
even provided with money to meet their daily expenses.

While
the Adrianople garrison was holding out peace was confined within the
fortress walls. The Bulgarian 2nd army seized the fortress on March 13,
1913, capturing 14 pashas, 2,000 officers, 60,000 non-commissioned officers
and men who surrendered 16 banners, 600 guns and a large quantity of rifles
and machine-guns. [5] Bulgaria bore the brunt of the First
Balkan War for it had mobilized more forces and sustained losses equal to
those of all its allies. [6] At the main Thracian theatre
of war the enemy admitted its defeat and fled to the capital because after
the seizure of the Adrianople fortress and the freeing of the 2nd army by
the heavy artillery the Catalca position would certainly have collapsed. On
April 1, the military operations were suspended. The Sublime Porte was again
forced to send its delegates to London on May 17, 1913 where a peace treaty
was signed by virtue of which the new border between Bulgaria and the
Ottoman Empire followed the straight line from the town of Midye on the
Black Sea to the town of Enos on the Aegean. The Thracian Bulgarians were
jubilant seeing the whole of Thrace free for the first time. The days of
exultation however were numbered.

it was
forced to defend its rights against four opponents — Serbia, Greece,
Montenegro and Romania — the ruling circles in Istanbul took advantage of
its extremely difficult international and military situation. On June 30,
the Ottoman Empire suddenly launched an offensive from its fortified
positions in Catalca and Bulair under the pretext that it was taking its
territory up to the Midye-Enos border as stipulated by the treaty.
Encountering small numbers of Bulgarian soldiers it did not stop where the
international law had decreed but continued its devastating march, sowing
death and destruction in the Bulgarian settlements. The plan of the Sublime
Porte envisaged the 'complete purging' of Eastern and Western Thrace from
Bulgarian population in order to prevent the Bulgarian troops' advance to
Istanbul and the Straits. An allout organized annihilation of Bulgarians was
launched.

The
Great Powers did not give due attention to the indiscriminate atrocities in
Southern Thrace. Having lost the war Bulgaria was punished as a state but
why should the massacre of women, children and old people be tolerated?
Having felt omnipotent in the forcible debulgarianisation two years later
the Young Turks' leaders ordered the massacre of one and a half million
Armenians. The previous genocide had bred another of a larger scope and
destructive effect. Crimes against mankind date back to the early years of
the Ottoman Empire which had survived on the yataghan's blade for centuries
on end. Whenever a giaour raised his head in defence of freedom and justice
he was decapitated so that the others might be kept in total submission. Not
only did such an 'argument' fail to persuade anyone but it also made all
promises of a future democracy worthless. So many Bulgarian revolutionaries
were once exiled to Diyarbakir (Turkish Kurdestan) that it has become a
synonym of prison. Historical experience however

10

testifies that no matter how thick the prison walls might be, freedom finds'
its way through to people's minds and hearts.

Excerpts
from the account of Lyubomir Georgiev Miletic (Jan. 1, 1863 — June 1,
1937), philologist, ethnographer, public figure, member of the Bulgarian
Academy of Sciences. Born in Stip. Graduate in Slavic philology from the
Zagreb University (1889). Deputy Chairman (1911-1925) and Chairman of the
Managing Board of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (1926-1937).
Corresponding member of a number of foreign academies and honorary member of
the East European Institute in Rome. L . Miletic studied many linguistic
phenomena, the living Bulgarian dialects and particularly the special
features of the Bulgarian tongue. He worked in the sphere of ethnography,
history and folklore.

This is
what Miletic noted down back in June 1915 in the preface to the book 'The
Ruin of the Thracian Bulgarians in 1913' (Sofia, 1918, in Bulgarian): 7
wrote this book as a contribution to the detailed history of the great
events of 1912-1913.1 support my statements by numerous quotations from
eye-witness accounts by direct participants most of whom I had questioned
myself. These investigations which I carried out with great energy and
effort were the result of a purely personal endeavour in which I was guided
by a keen sentiment of compassion for our unfortunate compatriots.' (Ibid,
p. 5)

In early
July 1913 the (Second Balkan) war between Bulgaria and its erstwhile allies
Serbia and Greece was at its height. Greek troops were already pressing into
Bulgarian territory towards Djoumaya, while Romanian troops had entered
Northern Bulgaria; at the same time the Bulgarian administration in the
Adrianople region was still reassuring the Bulgarian population of Thrace
that there was no imminent danger from the Turkish side. The general view
then was that the Turks, bound by the London Peace Treaty, would only go as
far as the Enos-Midye line. With this conviction, the population and
administration calmly went about their business until the last minute when
it became clear that the Turks were advancing, and were already looting,
murdering and burning on their way.

The
Turks carried out their re-occupation of the Adrianople region, which had
obviously been planned even before the beginning of the Second Balkan War
(between Bulgaria and its former allies), in early July 1913 in a cunning
and skilfully-executed manoeuvre, so that by the time our lax administration
realised what was up, the Turkish invasion was over. Initially the Turks,
not quite sure as to the resistance they would encounter on the part of the
Bulgarian population and whether they might not cause a pro-Bulgarian
reaction in Europe, decided to execute their plan as quickly and as quietly
as possible. Simultaneously they achieved another important goal by arriving
before the frightened Bulgarian population could flee: they managed to carry
out the re-occupation without preparing supplies, mainly food supplies, for
their troops because, as eye-witness reports further down show, the first
concern of the Turkish military commanders on taking over Bulgarian villages
was to collect the livestock and all the food in

13

storage,
and then to make the Bulgarian population complete the work of harvesting,
threshing and storing the produce. Having done so, the Bulgarian population
was expelled across the nearest Bulgarian border with just the clothes they
wore, and without their cattle. Their possessions were handed over to the
plunder-hungry Turkish population, which had fled Thrace at the beginning of
the 1912 war and had now returned in the wake of the Turkish occupying
forces. All this was done in a planned fashion in fulfilment of a general
directive from the military authorities. In order to guarantee the success
of the plan and to avoid any armed resistance by the Bulgarian population,
the Turkish commanders gave orders for the confiscation of all the weapons
owned by the local population, down to the last rusty bayonet. Knowing the
lack of discipline and laxity of the Turks, it is surprising to see from the
data given below how precisely and thoroughly the plan was carried out.
Apart from totally plundering the Bulgarian population, the Turks inevitably
committed the usual atrocities against the defenceless Bulgarian population.
The most violent detachment was the one that marched on Adrianople via Kesan.
The atrocities it perpetrated are rare even in Turkey's history of excessive
bloodshed. The troops which marched on Lozengrad and Malko Turnovo from
Corlu and the Vize region behaved comparatively more humanely. Beyond doubt
the re-occupation plan envisaged the complete clearing of the newly-taken
region of Thrace of its Bulgarian population, evidently to prevent any
future Bulgarian claims to the region on the basis of nationality. During
the signing of the Constantinople Peace Treaty, the Turkish government tried
covertly to legalise the mass expulsion of all Bulgarians, which also
involved the confiscation of their land and estate. The Bulgarian delegates
recognised Turkey's right not to let the Bulgarian population within 15
km of the border. [1] This was a trap, because once
recognized in principle, the 'exchange', that is to say the expulsion of the
Bulgarian population from the border zone, was applied by the Turkish
government to the whole of Turkish Thrace, taking advantage of
Bulgaria's powerlessness and the new political morality demonstrated by
small and large Christian states, of which some broke newly-signed political
agreements and others allowed such treaties to be broken without
making any serious protest. But Turkey went much further in its

14

non-observance of the treaty: it did not apply it to the property and estate
of the population: not only was the Bulgarian population expelled from the
whole of Turkish Thrace, but no property was exchanged or compensation paid
as envisaged in the treaty's amendment. The Bulgarian government promptly
nominated a commission, which after sitting for almost a whole year in
Adrianople without doing anything, was finally dissolved. The Bulgarian
government did not dare respond in kind by expelling the entire Turkish
population from the new territories and confiscating its property.

The
deliberate Turkish invasion across the Enos-Midye line was carefully
concealed even from the Turkish officers until the very last minute, even
though it was a public secret in Constantinople. The Turkish major Nail Bey,
a teacher at the Military School in Constantinople and head of the troops
who took over Malko Turnovo, when asked by Raiko Popov, mayor of Malko
Turnovo, why they crossed the border, replied: 'Do you take us for fools?
When Romania crossed your borders despite all treaties, we waited on the
Midye-Enos line for two days, and were about to set up camp, when
suddenly the order came for us to carry on.' This happened on June 30.

Let us
now see what happened to the rural population of the Adrianople region, in
particular those villages which remained under Turkish rule and from which
after the Treaty of Constantinople the Bulgarians were, after terrible
suffering, mercilessly expelled across the border into Bulgaria.

In order
to keep some kind of chronological order, we shall begin with the regions
which were subjected to the first blows of the Turkish invasion.

If one
goes south from the Adrianople kaaza (administrative subdivision of a
sanjak, or, district) towards Dimotica (Dhidhimotikhon) and Uzunkopru, the
Bulgarian villages become sparser, which makes the southernmost kaazas of
Kesan and Malkara surprising with their comparatively denser Bulgarian
population, among whom also live Mohammedan Bulgarians

15

(Pomaks)
who had settled there in the past three or four decades. There are five main
Bulgarian villages in the two regions: Bulgarkoy, which is five kilometres
east of the town of Kesan, and Lezgar, Kadikoy, Pisman and Teslim. There
were also Bulgarians in the villages of Harlagun and Yailagun, both nearby
to the east. In Lezgar and Yailagun there were both Orthodox and Uniate
Bulgarians. This Bulgarian population was the first to feel the blows of
Turkish vengeance. The village which suffered most of all was Bulgarkoy,
as its population was the largest, the most prosperous, and had a high
national consciousness.

Below I
give a detailed account of the terrible fate that befell the inhabitants of
this until recently flourishing Bulgarian village.

The
people of Bulgarkoy who had run away, upon hearing that the Turks had gone
and left only two guards and four men to watch the cheese they had been
making on a Greek's farm, were reassured and gathered back in the village.
In order to tempt them even more, the Turks had let some cows and oxen
loose, about 10 to 15 per cent of the total, and some people went out to
look for their cattle. During the night the soldiers came back and
surrounded the village. While it was still dark, shots could be heard from
the Kesan road, which were a warning that the Turks were coming back. The
village mayors and some of the notables went to find out what they wanted. A
lieutenant with a company ('tabor') of men, which included a fireman's squad
('yangin-alayi") surrounded the village. During that time-many peasants
succeeded in fleeing back into the woods. Lieutenant Nesat Effendi ordered
everyone to take their weapons and everything they had taken from the Turks
in the previous war outside the village. The anxious villagers started
carrying things, whether they had taken them from the Turks or not, even
bringing embroidered Bulgarian tunics just so that they could be written
down as having given something. 'I myself went there,' said Old Dimiter,
'and took my son's Turkish army uniform — first he had been a Turkish
soldier, and then he was recruited in the Bulgarian troops in Serbia.

16

I
brought them the clothes, and explained about my son Atanas...' There were
no quality weapons in the village, mostly Crimean and some hunting guns.
Meanwhile heavily-armed patrols crisscrossed the village, taking the
villagers to an agreed place outside the village, saying that their
commanders would give them a speech on how to start living again with the
Turks as they had done before. The villagers even encouraged each other to
go outside the village to hear the speech. Merchant Spas Dobrev said that he
was almost ready to go himself, but knowing Turkish verbosity from the time
of the liberation, was not interested and went back home. Old Dimiter
noticed that an officer gave him a doubting look when he handed in his son's
uniform, and so he got away by saying that the elders wanted him back in the
village in order to inventorise the possessions he was about to hand in. He
locked himself in his house and decided not to go out anywhere.

350 men,
young and old, gathered outside the village, including the village priest
Pavel. The commander asked if there were more people in the village, and on
receiving the reply that there were no more than a dozen, ordered the
villagers to stand in a group, after which he ordered the soldiers to fire
volley at them. Those who had remained in the village — this was at noon on
Sunday, July 7 — heard two volleys of shots. Everybody fell to the ground,
and those with lighter wounds started to run away. Using bayonets, the
soldiers finished off those lying there, and set off in pursuit of those who
were fleeing. Only eight got away with their lives: Karafil Stoyanov (age
39), Nikola Stoyanov (50), Hristo Todorov (30), Ivan Mitrov (35), Kiro
Vulchov (30), Ivan Kostadinov (25), who was lightly wounded and killed later
as he fled towards Lozengrad, and Nikola Ivanov (25). I had the occasion in
Dedeagach (today Alexandroupolis) to meet one of the survivors, Karafil
Stoyanov, who told me how the men of Bulgarkoy had been massacred: 'We were
sitting near the officers. They told us to wait and to stay where we were.
The bugle sounded and the soldiers gathered opposite. An officer went up to
them and told them something. Then he returned to us and told us to move
closer together and to go down on to the road. We stood in a closely-packed
group. Then the officer asked us whether there were people from other
villages among us. We replied that there were. There were Bulgarians from
Lezgar and Pisman there. The

17

officer
walked twice between the two rows of people, villagers and soldiers, who
were about ten paces away from us. Then he gave the order to fire. When they
shot we all threw ourselves to the ground, wounded or not. The second time
they fired — which was immediately after the first, I jumped up and bolted
to the right, northwards (the officer was on the left), and followed the
river until I reached a pool. Two others were running along with me, and the
three of us lay down in the water with only our heads above the surface.
There were briars and blackberry bushes growing over the water, and we
stayed there from noon until about 10 in the evening. During that time we
heard shots from the village, but no shouts or screams. In the evening, when
the three of us got out of the water — Ivan Mitrev, Kiro Vulchov and myself,
we saw that the whole village was in flames and we proceeded eastwards
towards the woods and the Malkara region. There we found the women and
children who had fled the village and about 50 men. We hid in the woods
there for 48 days, and then went to Kesan where we gave ourselves up to the
Turkish authorities. There we stayed for 8 days until the order came for us
all to be sent to Gallipoli (Gelibolu).'

I learnt
details about the terror that ensued in the village itself by questioning,
apart from Old Dimiter and the merchant Spas Dobrev who now live in
Dedeagach, many other men and women who have been accommodated in the
village of Sahinlar, near Dedeagach, all of whom had from the beginning to
the end undergone the terrible ordeals to which the surviving population of
Bulgarkoy had been subjected. Here I shall give the most typical accounts of
the above-mentioned eye-witnesses.

Old
Dimiter, as we have seen, had succeeded in getting away under the pretext
that the village ciders needed him, to which the officer impatiently and
reluctantly shouted: Well, get on then! 'When I heard the shooting,' he
said, '1 realised that they were going to massacre us. About ten minutes
later, they started setting fire to the village. First they set fire to
Georgi Varsamiev's house, which was near the place where they had shot the
people. Then they went to the square and set fire to the pubs, and the
mayor's and my own coffee-shop, which is separated from my house by a stone
wall. Luckily, my house didn't catch fire. We hid inside — myself, my wife,
and a widow with five children. I watched as two

18

fifteen-year-old lads were killed outside my house: one was Dimiter
Hadjikirov, and the other was Dimiter Savov. They had hidden in the attic of
the opposite house, a pub, where there were about 40 women. The women
started running around, screaming and wailing in terror... The soldiers
rounded them up behind my house to search them for money. One soldier
shouted: 'Do not harass the women!' (kadinlari dokunmayasi!). I heard all
this. After taking what they found on the women, they left them, and the
women ran off into the mountains. About 25 women were killed that day,
including [2] Maringovitsa Kalya (age 40), Sultana Aleshova
(25), Maria Petkova Kalovitsa (70), Demyana Nikolova (22 ) — she threw
herself into the fire to avoid getting raped; Zlata Hristova (20), who was
killed with her baby in her arms near the village, both of them shot;
Petkana, the wife of Priest Pavel, who was also shot down, Nedelya Georgieva
(50), Yanka Mihaleva (55) and Yanchova Katrana (Katerina) (40). At one spot
by the river Kamus, 13 slaughtered women were found. 'I didn't know what to
do,' said Old Dimiter. 'If I went outside, they'd kill me, and if I stayed
indoors I'd burn. Fortunately my house and that of the widow Varsama Peyova,
who was hiding with us, didn't catch fire. It got dark. At around 10 or 11
the woman saw through the window — it was a full moon — eight soldiers in
single file were coming through the lower gate towards the front door. I
also went outside and saw them. They smashed the door in with a rock. We
left through the back gate and entered the neighbouring houses which were
still burning. We managed to get out of the village by running from house to
house. Then we followed the river upstream into the mountains above Teslim.
There we found about 500 women and children hiding in the scrub. We spent
about two weeks there. We crushed wheat to survive. The goats had been
scattered all through the forest: we slaughtered goats, but didn't have any
salt. Meanwhile Turkish muhaciri (refugees) from the neighbouring villages
went around the village collecting food and chattels. Bashi-bazouks also
came-from the town (Kesan), and Turkish women came from the villages,
carrying off whatever they could get hold of .The soldiers who had butchered
us on Sunday left the next day. On that day "and during the night (July 7)
all women were raped. By July 10 the entire village was deserted, plundered
and burnt. On July 17 a Turkish officer came from the

19

Greek
village of Tetekoy with some soldiers and started hunting us out in the
woods to massacre the remaining men. They hunted us down like rabbits,
shooting and killing about 20 people. Grouda Ivanova (25) with her three
children was also killed then in the vineyard near St. Atanas Monastery. The
soldiers captured about 100 women and took them to the village of Teslim.
All Bulgarians had fled from the village, which hadn't been put to the
flame.'

Let us
now trace the abduction of these 1,030 people of Bulgarkoy from Kesan to
Gallipoli. In Old Dimiter's coffee-shop in Dedeagach, where he told of his
experiences, about 15 women of Bulgarkoy listened and often added their own
details and corrections. In their view, the Turks intended to take them to
Asia Minor and to keep them there for a certain period, possibly in order to
prevent the news of the atrocities in Bulgarkoy from leaking out
immediately. The unfortunate peasants themselves are convinced that they
were to be converted to Islam in Anatolia, the women being scattered among
the Turkish villages. Whether this was the case cannot be said, but it is
certain that even today children from Bulgarkoy of both sexes are scattered
among the Turkish villages of Kesan country, converted to Islam, as we shall
see below. Old Dimiter gave me a detailed account of how they reached
Gallipoli, how they crossed the Dardanelles to the Asian coast, and how they
were subsequently rescued:

'We
spent two nights in the open on the way to Gallipoli from Kesan. We spent
the first night in the village of Mavrovo, which is on the Enos-Midye line.
From there we reached the Turkish village of Idilhan, stopping to spend the
night outside the village. Some Turks from the village and the neighbourhood
arrived and together with the soldiers dragged away women and girls — even
10 or 12 year-old girls — and molested them through the night, bringing them
back afterwards. The men stood to one side, not daring to move. There were
no killings. It was a terrible night. From there we set off for Bulair. On
the way we were met by people from other villages who wanted us to stop so
that they could do the same thing to the women again. We begged the soldiers
to let us carry on to Bulair, which was nearby, and it was still 4 or 5
hours to nightfall. But the soldiers wanted us to sleep where we were ... We
carried on regardless, reached Bulair, and

20

stopped
outside the village. We met a Greek boy from Bulair, whom we told of our
harassment and the fact that they wanted us to stop far away from the
village. He went and told the authorities in Bulair. Some police came and
ordered us to go into the village, which is Greek and Turkish. They
prohibited anyone from bothering the women, and stopping the disgrace that
had been going on ever since we'd left Kesan. This was the night of
September 2. The next day we carried on to Gallipoli. which we reached
around evening. When we arrived there, a police chief (yuzbasi)
didn't let us down to the harbour, but turned us back to the lighthouse on a
rise beside the sea. He sent a guard to prevent anyone from coming to see
us. The Catholic priests and the Greek bishop who came were turned back by
the soldiers. We stayed there for an hour or two, and at sunset they led us
down to the harbour, where boats had been prepared to take us to Asia Minor.
They gave us half a loaf of bread each and ferried us across. The sea was
calm. They took us to Cardak, the town opposite Gallipoli. Here we remained
outside the town, in the field for a whole month. There was no shade or
anything-it was terribly hot. They gave us half a loaf of bread a day. The
town is completely Turkish, with only Turks living there. They let us go
there to buy various things. About half a dozen of us had a bit of money on
them. The women managed to do odd jobs here and there, such as
grape-picking, shelling maize and cracking nuts, for which they earned a
penny or two a day. The women went to the town with sacks to buy bread.'

'In
Cardak there was a Greek named Dimiter, from Bulair. He saw our plight and
felt sorry for us, and so he wrote a letter and took it to Lapsa, to Yani
Chorbadji, a rich Greek merchant and an acquaintance of the consul in
Canakkale at the Dardanelles. Yani wrote a letter to the consuls, telling
them of all the people in Cardak. Meanwhile, the Turks had started to
distribute us among the Turkish villages again — mainly the women. Sitting
on the seashore we saw a boat approaching. It brought the Turkish and
Italian consuls and the Lapsa district officer. They questioned us, and
chose me (I speak Greek) and another man to give a brief account of our
plight. They fold the Turkish district officer to bring together all our
people, including the women sent to the villages, on the quay. The consuls
asked me where we wanted to

21

go. I
replied that we wanted to go to Varna, because some of our sons were in the
Bulgarian Army, and also because other survived relatives of ours might have
gone there. They told us to wait three or four days, while they telegraphed
for a ship to come and pick us up. And six days later, the Bulgarian ship
Kiril arrived, and the Turkish consul came again. He and Yani had ordered
1,200 loaves of bread in Galipoli, five tins of cheese, 3 or 4 baskets of~
olives, 5 or 6 tubs of sardines and about half a dozen sacks of figs for the
children. This was for our journey. There were also about half a dozen
baskets of grapes. Then they saw us off. First we sailed to Gallipoli, where
we picked up the bread. We called at Istanbul for two hours or so, reaching
Varna on September 29 or 30; the sea wasn't very calm. Two died on the way
to Varna. In Varna, we were quartered in the Aquarium and the Orphanage.
That's where we spent the winter. In the Aquarium the floors were of cement,
and it was very cold. Many children died of cold there, about 60 in all.
there was also smallpox. There were few families in the Orphanage, about 10
in all. Other refugees from our parts had come to the Aquarium. There were
about 40-50 households from Pisman, who had also gone through Cardak and
again been taken by the consul to Varna, but before us, around the 8th of
August. We spent three months in the Aquarium, and then they moved us to
Dedeagach. They shipped most of us by sea, aboard the Ferdinand. We
hung around there for about two months, and on 15 April we were housed in
the former Turkish village of Sahinlar. Most of the women and widows were
taken away to look for a Jiving in Stara Zagora, Chirpan and Sliven. About
40 or 50 widows stayed here. In all, about 220 men of Bulgarkoy survived, of
whom 140 had been enlisted in the army at the time, which was how they got
away. In the second war three of them were killed and one died during the
war. In all, some 1,100 people of our village were massacred, died or
disappeared. One of the two priests, the younger one, is in Sahinlar now.'

Other
women, widows, had also come from Sahinlar, while the rest were accommodated
in Dedeagach. The widows were a sorry sight, so deeply had the horrors they
had undergone been inscribed on their faces, and the hunger from which they
had suffered had so affected their appearance that it was hard not to weep
on seeing them. They thought that I was in a position to do something

22

to help
them, and they all repeatedly asked me at least to lobby for the bread
ration that the refugee commissar in Dedeagach had stopped giving them for
some time now, saying that they had to earn their living by working, even
though there was no work to be found. When I asked the commissar, Mr.
Rosenthal, if that was true, he confirmed everything, and I realised that we
were truly incapable of properly and humanely organising a charitable cause,
even when it was a matter of such unfortunates as the poor women of
Bulgarkoy, these wraiths of human beings. Some of them had so fallen in
spirit and in their physical health as a result of traumas and the poverty
of a year and a half that it was more than outrageous to require them to
earn their own living by working in a tobacco factory, which incidentally,
had not yet been opened. I questioned the women to find out details about
their sufferings, and here list some of the more typical cases.

Katerina
Georgeva,
26, mother of two children — Yani, 6, and Dimiter, 3. 'When they massacred
the men, among whom was my husband Georgi Petkov (30),' she related, 'I was
in the house where a lot of women had gathered. They broke into the house,
and we ran away, while the Turks shot at us. My grandmother Maria Petkova
(70), remained in the house, along with my children. She was killed. My
children were taken to Kesan along with the other children. They say that my
children are still alive today, the younger one with some Greeks in Kesan,
and the elder in Gallipoli, also in a Greek home, but nobody knows in which
house. I feel wretched about my children, sir, I am as you see me, no
clothes, without money, on my own, with nobody to help me find out something
about my children.'

Kostadina Georgieva
(36): 'When we fled from the village, I had a four-year-old boy. Andrea. He
got lost in the village. I've no idea whether he's alive or been eaten up by
the dogs. We heard that one of our villager, Bogdan the Elder, took him in.
He was killed by the Turks, but we don't know what happened to the child. My
husband Kostadin Petrov was killed in the crowd.'

killed
in Teslim. Her son Nikola (12) was left behind in Kesan. Greeks-took him in
along with his younger brother, and later she journeyed all the way from
Dedeagach to Kesan to track him down; she found him and took him back.

Maria
Ivanova
(55): 'I had three sons: Kostadin — 36, Atanas — 27 and Todor — 22. All
three of them were shot there. I had a 20-year-old daughter, Kalinka. They
caught her in the woods and violated her terribly. In Varna she died, so
upset she had been by it all. Her husband was in the army; so he survived.
The two got together in Varna. They were only together for one week. She
cried all the time. She told him everything. He kept consoling her, telling
her not to worry, but she kept on saying: 'I might as well be dead, I'm not
a Christian any more!' And she died a week later. The Lord took her. I had
seven children in all — three daughters and four sons. The three I told you
about were shot, and the fourth, Dimiter, was a soldier on the Serbian
border, and so survived. Things were difficult for Nedelya, my second
daughter, who was married and with child: she gave birth in the forest, and
we left the baby there. Later, when we got to Kesan, the Englishman Albert
who owns a flour factory hid her, and then sent her and two other
18-year-old girls to Enos, where they stayed on his farm. Only now, in
January 1914, did they come to Dedeagach. The younger one and myself
wandered to Gallipoli and Varna where, as I said, she died.'

All
these women had terrible stories to tell. One 18-year-old girl, Irina
Kostadinova, fled with her brother towards Lozengrad: her brother was
killed, and Turkish officers caught her and took her to a house in
Adrianople where they kept her for three months. Thence they sent her to
Uzunkopru, where she had inlaws. When the Turks expelled the people of
Uzunkopru, she came to Plovdiv where she fell ill: she had become pregnant
and soon died of 'shame and torment'. An 8-year-old girl, Dimitra Kiryakova,
was caught near the windmills outside Kesan by Turkish soldiers, who
'tormented' her — she lived for three days after that, and then died with no
one to bury her.

The
Bulgarian villages in the Malkara region also suffered, though not as badly.
Part of the population of Lezgar, Pisman, Teslim, Harlagun and others
managed to escape before the advent of the Turkish troops. A woman from
Lezgar told me in Dedeagach how she ran away with her 8-year-old
daughter from the field, as she was wearing her summer clothes, and she now
shivered with cold (it was December 1913); in the meantime her husband, who
had gone back to the village to take his two other daughters, was caught up
by the Turks and kept there all summer f to work. In the end, together with
others from the village, he was thrown out, with just the clothes he wore on
his back. He turned up in a wretched state with just one child — the other
had died from the misery of the journey. In the same way the Bulgarians of
Harlagun who had not managed to escape were held until the end of
harvest-time, and were in the end expelled by the Turks bare-handed. The
kaimakam (lieutenant) after appropriating all their corn, told them to go to
Bulgaria, where everything would be returned. After much wandering and great
hardships, attacked on the road between Mustafapasha (Svilengrad), Ortakoy (Ivailovgrad)
and Soflu (Souflion), about 180 families reached Soflu and settled in the
village of Handja (on the river Maritsa near Soflu) which had been
abandoned by the Turks during the first war, in 1912. Fifty other families,
brought to the new border by the Turks, were accommodated in the former
Turkish village of Ivabik (Uvabuyuk, Mustafapasha region). They got good
land. In the deserted Turkish village they found 13 houses in good
condition. They told me that there were not many killed from Harlagun, but
about a dozen people had died of fright and anguish.

The
Turkish force which had destroyed Bulgarkoy devastated everything Bulgarian
in the Kesan and Malkara districts and then moved on to the Uzunkopru
district. Here again the Bulgarian authorities had no premonition of the
Turkish invasion. Only when Bulgarkoy went up in flames did the panic spread
to the

25

In front
of the remains of Vulko Sarjev in the Armagan Valley.

Voivoda
Dimiter Madjarov kneeling by the scattered remains of two of his
comrades-in-arms killed in the battle of Fere (Feredjik, Dedeagac province
in Greece).

---------------------------

Uzunkopru kaaza. On July 6 the county chief Ivan Zdravkov and the
rest of the Bulgarian population fled the town. They had not gone a long way
before they saw the villages of the district in flames: Copkoy,
Turnovo (now Bairamli) and Ermenikoy.

Entering
the village of Turnovo, the Turkish troops set fire to a
recently-completed church which had cost the villagers 2,500 liras. Here too
the Turks first demanded bread and food, then tortured the more wealthy for
money, arid finally rounded up the women and girls and molested them.

It
should be noted that the Gallipoli Turkish unit did not spare some Greek
villages in the Kesan and Uzunkopru regions, either.

In the
Greek villages of Arnautkoy (Gougoutka, Ivailovgrad region), Kavadjik (row
Levkimi in Greece), Hedili and Karabunar the Turks killed many people,
violated women and tortured the wealthier people for money.

It is
worth noting in particular that the Christian Albanians who were in the path
of the cruel Gallipoli unit under Enver Bey suffered badly too. The worst
fate befell the village of Zuluf, 6 hours from Adrianople, in the Havsa
kaaza, famous for its wine and prosperity. About 687 people were killed
here. Earlier we mentioned that according to the priest of Inece, father S.
Popandreev even after that terrible massacre there were people of Zuluf in
the prisons of Adrianople, along with other Christian Albanians from
Ibriktepe. In Zuluf women were raped by soldiers, and after that most of
them savagely put to death.

As
everywhere else, in the Uzunkopin district the remaining population was
forced to do the fieldwork and bring in the harvest, and afterwards was
driven away.

Enver
Bey's force continued its march towards Adrianople, setting fire to the
Bulgarian villages and massacring the population. The villages of
Comlekkoy, Novo Selo and others were burned. The Bulgarians
fleeing from the village of Tatarlar in Adrianople district were
caught up by Turkish cavalry six kilometres outside the village, and a
number of them were simply hacked down on the spot. About 20 people were
slaughtered like sheep before the others' eyes. The rape of women and girls,
of whom many also died, was terrible. All the women of Osmanli were
also violated. This happened on July 11.

Enver
Bey's unit continued its march from Adrianople through Mustafapasha, heading
towards the old Bulgarian border, while other units headed west towards
Ortakoy (Ivailovgrad). Apart from Mustafapasha itself, some of the Bulgarian
villages whose populace had not succeeded in fleeing suffered very badly.
The Bulgarian population of Mustafapasha was comparatively large.

It had
about 1,300 Bulgarian Exarchist families, and about 45 Bulgarian
Patriarchist families.

The
morale of the Turkish troops, which had entered Adrianople timidly, was
boosted considerably when found out that the re-occupation would be
successful without arousing any serious protests from the Great Powers. This
heightened morale among the Turkish officers and men was expressed in cruel
persecution, killing and plundering of the Bulgarian population which had
not managed to cross the old Bulgarian border. In the wake of the troops
came the Bashi-bazouks. The terrible news that the Turks were burning and
slaughtering spread like lightning, but nevertheless the people of some
villages did not succeed in escaping. As we have seen above, on July 11 the
Bulgarians from the village of Tatarlar in Adrianople district were caught
up by cavalry, and 20 of them were simply slaughtered before the fleeing
populace. In the village of Karaagach (now Phtelia), the Bulgarians were
taken by surprise on July 10, when the Turks entered the village and started
massacring. About 20 people were killed, including Old Matei, Hristo Ivanov
and Georgi Domouschiev. Old Miho, an eye-witness, managed to escape. The
villages of Izpitli, Kadikoy, Kurtkoy, Mezek and Germen (now Ormenion) were
burned as well as Karaagach; the inhabitants of Kurtkoy (now
Vulkovich) fled with their belongings and cattle up to the old border above
the village of Alvandere (now Malko Gradishte), where they stopped in the
hills. Shots could be heard from Musfafapasha, which the Turks had already
entered. The villagers of Alvandere, in order to frighten the Turks and
prevent them from entering their village, started firing loudly. The
refugees from Kurtkoy, when they heard shots from Alvandere as well, thought
that the Turks had cut them off and already entered

27

Alvandere. A terrible panic ensued, with people running on all sides towards
the border, leaving the carts with their belongings and some of their cattle
behind. Only 15 carts and a few animals were saved. The Turks arrived soon
afterwards, looting and burning the village. When I passed through Kurtkoy,
the peasants were zealously building new houses. About 10 had been
completed, but they had no roofs because of the lack of tiles. Above the
village stood the walls of a large Turkish barracks building which had been
destroyed during the first war in 1912. The villages of Devedere (now
Kamilski Dol), Komarli Mustrakli (now Moustrak), Dervishka Mogila and Kaika
suffered badly. As we shall see, the fate of Devedere was particularly hard.

On the
10th of July the Turks succeeded in entering Mustafapasha, where only about
15 old people remained, who were cruelly put to death, after which they set
fire to the town, as we shall see below.

Details
about the terrible fate of Mustafapasha only became known at home as the
Bulgarian re-occupation drew near in late September. I myself did not
succeed in visiting the town during my first journey late in 1913, as it was
inconvenient getting from the station to the town, which is some distance
away; in any case, I had been informed that the town had been so ravaged
that there was no suitable place to put up during the night. In order not to
miss the train to Soflu, I postponed my visit to the town for another
occasion. At the same time, our press had just published two descriptions of
the devastation of the town by S. Razboinikov, the former mayor (in Mir,
issue 4006, 19 Sept. 1913) and by A. Kiprov (Bulgaria, issue 26, 20
October 1913), which give a full picture of the horrors that were
perpetrated there, and from them I acquired sufficient information for the
following account of the events in Mustafapasha.

As we
have noted, the populace of Mustafapasha, on hearing that the Turks had
entered Adrianople, quickly fled the town and crossed the old Bulgarian
border. Only old people and a few young men who had not succeeded in fleeing
remained. The very day after the Turks arrived (10th July) they rounded up
all the men in the town, who numbered about 25, and locked them up for
eleven days, subjecting them to horrible torture. Some of them managed to
bribe their way out, while the rest were handed over

28

to the
notoriously bloodthirsty Turk, Karagoz Ali, who took them to the abattoir
and slaughtered them. Granny Gospodinovitsa, who was in the town and
survived, related that Karagoz Ali amused himself by slaughtering the
wretches one by one, making the others watch as they waited for their turn.
One young man, S. Shopov, continuously prayed to be killed the quicker so as
not to watch those horrors, and Karagoz Ali, smoking a cigarette, told him:
"Don't worry, my lad, your turn will come too.' One of the inhabitants,
Todor Kiraza Petrov, who had remained in the town and was hidden and thus
saved by some Turks he knew, gave the names of those slaughtered at the
abattoir or killed in their homes: the old teacher D. Vuglyarov (70),
Ivan Bourgoudjiev, Anastas Metlarov, Vangel Kostadinov Kroushev, Yanaki
Todorov and his brother Ivan Todorov, the teacher Yanaki Iliev,
Mihail Zhekov, Nedelko Tekeliev, the brothers Argir and
Hristaki Popov, Alexander Shopov, Dimiter Hadjipetrov, Old Vulko the
miller, Old Srebryo the miller and Old Boicho. Old women were
also killed in the cruellest manner, after being tortured for money. Mr A.
Kiprov's 84-year-old mother was killed in her house on July 13th and
her body thrown down the well, where it was found on September 16. Her
clothes were found in the yard, soaked in blood, and part of her scalp had
been cut off.

The old
teacher Vuglyarov was killed in the high street, and his head was carried
around the streets for several days, Anastas Metlarov was killed in a house
where he was hiding, and his body was also thrown down the well. Priest
Slav found his 80-year-old mother's head. The heads of four
old women were found in the yard of Yanaki Iliev, one of the victims of
the abattoir.

When
they entered Mustafapasha on July 10, the Turks only partially set fire to
it, so that for the greater part it was saved. When the Turks found out that
according to the treaty between Bulgaria and Turkey Mustafapasha would
remain permanently in Bulgaria, they urged the Greeks to leave for
Adrianople, and then burned down the entire town. The few houses that still
stood were dismantled, and the building materials conveyed to a new town the
Turks were building near the border, to become something like New
Mustafapasha. The destruction was so great that it was

29

difficult to recognise the yards, and there was no trace of the houses, nor
of the big, solidly-built public buildings — churches, schools, the
hospital, the barracks, mosques, large warehouses — all had been razed to
the ground. All trees in the marketplace had been cut down, along with the
mulberry woods around the town.

Apart
from Mustafapasha, the villages of Aladag (now Pustrorog), Enia (now
Mladinovo), Mezek, Kurtulen, Devedere, Cermen and Karaagach were also burnt
down. The worst affected Bulgarian village in the district was Devedere (now
Kamilski Dol), which I personally visited on my second journey in the spring
of 1914, when I rode from Hibibchevo via Alvandere to Ortakoy, and from
there via Maluk Dervent to Soflu.

The
Bulgarians were most numerous and most prosperous in the Lozengrad district
(together with the Kovcaz nahiye, with about 25 Bulgarian villages).
In Lozengrad itself the Bulgarians were equal to and even outnumbered the
Greeks, while in the district only the centre of the nahiye Skope (Eskipolos)
and the villages of Petra (Kaiad) and Polos had Greek populations. In Skope,
apart from 700 Greek families, there were also about 150 Bulgarian
patriarchist families.

How the
Turks behaved with the Bulgarian population in the Thracian villages can
best be seen by the account of the aforementioned priest Stoyan Andreev from
the village of Inece, a purely Bulgarian village of 350 households. On July
8 at 10 a.m. the Turkish troops who were marching towards Lozengrad, entered
the village.

This is
Father Andreev's account:

'We had
heard from refugees from the southernmost villages of Karamasli and Enimahle
that the Turks were coming. Because the refugees were only men, frightened
single men, who had fled before they had seen the Turks, and whose wives had
stayed behind in the village, we thought that the Turks would behave
decently, and so did not flee. We assumed that the Turks had become

30

more
reasonable, that they were just occupying territory, and would leave us in
peace. We were grossly deluded. The village of Kavakli, on the other
hand, acted more sensibly: the villagers fled the day before the Turks
arrived. Other villages who were naive like ourselves were Dokuzuk,
Enimahle, Karamasli, Kuyundere, Karahadir, Arpac, Osmanli, Selioglu,
Tatarlar, Geckenli and Musul.'

'Before
the Turkish soldiers came, about 40 or 50 of us, village notables, came out
to greet them, to bid them welcome. In the meantime our village was
surrounded by many more. Some of the villagers tried to escape, but
unsuccessfully, because whoever tried to flee was promptly shot down. We saw
this with our eyes when we were outside the village: Atanas Arabov (55, a
shepherd), made a run for it. and the Turks shouted 'Dur, dur!', he kept on
running, and they shot him. In the same way they shot a little boy, Stanoe
Apostolov, aged 8. They also shot six-year-old Stoyan Nikolov. while Ilia
Prodanov (55) was bayonetted to death. Then they shot Gergin Georgi, Blagoi
Tsenov and Atanas Tananov. When we saw all this we realised that we were
lost, that the Turks were hostile and wouldn't spare us. '

'One
Turkish officer, a lieutenant, approached us. We bade him welcome, and he
said: 'Well, what're you going to do now that all the troops have come?' And
indeed, the infantry also started arriving — at first only the cavalry had
come. We said nothing, thinking we were trapped and would be massacred. The
infantry arrived, closing an even tighter circle around the village. It was
noon by the time they had encircled the village. When we went back to the
village, some officers came and went straight to the church.

'At the
time all our cattle, about 3,000 heads, was outside the village by the river
Tekedere. The officer said: 'Hand over all your cattle.' We replied: 'The
cattle's by the river.' They went and rounded it all up. The small animals
were also there — about 11,000 sheep and goats. The Turks, after taking the
cattle, said that whoever had flour should bring it and put it in the church
and the village shop in the centre of the village. The villagers got over
with this quickly, for it had been said that whoever disobeyed the order
would be shot.'

'Dusk
came. Another order was given: nobody should leave

31

their
homes; whoever did would be shot. In the evening the Turks sent soldiers
with sacks to gather all the poultry, of which there must have been 30,000
chickens and turkeys.'

'In the
morning, another order was issued: everyone who had grain should store it in
the village barn. To get the job done quickly, the Turks sent an army cart,
and with it carried about 10,000 Turkish kilos of wheat. That job took three
or four days. In the meantime the Turks had camped around the village, with
only 250 Turkish men and officers inside the village to transport the grain.
They were quartered in half a dozen houses, 30 or 40 men to a house.'

'When
the grain had been collected, they asked if there was any more livestock. To
check, they went from house to house, and got from the stables about 300
mounts with saddles and harnesses., Afterwards they demanded that every
shepherd bring all the wool he had. The shepherds brought out about 8.000
okas of wool. Then they let us be for a few days. After that they started
seeking out the wealthier villagers. When they found out who they were, in
the evening they started sending soldiers to the houses to torture them for
money, and in this way they took a lot of money. A harder man, named Peter
Ouzounov, did not give away any of his money. One evening the officers hung
him up by his legs down three times to make him give them money. In the end
he broke, got out 52 napoleons and handed them over.'

'On July
20 the soldiers started setting up threshing-floors, and brought in
cartloads of wheat-stacks from the fields to some 50 threshing-floors. And
so the soldiers themselves threshed all the new corn. They fed the husks to
their horses. They cut down all the trees on the village common — willows,
mulberry and fruit- trees for the soldiers to make huts, as the tents were
insufficient. There were about 200 hectares of church land, from which they
chopped wood for cooking etcetera.'

'When
they finished with the threshing, a commission of officers and Turks from
the nearby villages of Kisilca, Muselim, Pasacri and Tekesilar went from
house to house. They took out literally all the possessions of our peasants,
loaded them or military carts and sent them to the Turkish villages. They
went through the whole village, house by house. Crying and screams could be
heard throughout the village. All they left for the people was a

32

cartload
or two of millet, which they had brought in from the fields before the
arrival of the Turks. In order to stave off hunger, the wretched peasants
ground the millet with poles — there was no cattle left — some boiled it,
others ground it with hand-mills to feed themselves. Many died from the
diet, such as Georgi Stoyanov's boy, Ivan Mihov, Stoyan Nikolov, Naiden
Stoyanov, Rada Todorova and Veneta Panayotova. The church was not plundered.
All the possessions the people had left were the clothes they stood in and a
few rags that were no good for anything. They said: 'That's what your
Bulgarians did to us, and now we're doing the same to you to get even.'

'This
went on until September 22, when they expelled us to Bulgaria. But before
that let me tell you about the atrocities you asked about.'

'On the
first day, July 8, the Turks caught 26 people of middle rank and three
notables, and locked them up in the stable of an inn. They also locked up a
woman, Karamfila Ilieva Arabadjieva, with her husband. The people who were
locked up were: Peter Ouzounov, Ivan Koyvaliev, Ivan Nikolov, Ilia Yorgakev,
Kostadin Yorgakev, Ilya Georgev, Simeon Georgev, Kaloyan Ponev, Yane Mitrev,
Kostadin Buchvarov, Kostadin Hristov, Vassil Avramov, Apostol Kostadinov,
Todor Kostov, Andon Georgiev, Kostadin Dermendji, Andon Dermendji, Georgi
Kaloyanov, Yurgaki Petrov and Hristo Georgiev and the above-mentioned woman
with her mother. These people, it seems, were named by the local Turks. They
are the more decent Bulgarians, and they were imprisoned accused of having
killed Turks, when it was common knowledge that these same Turkish refugees
had fled to Constantinople, and so could not have suffered from our village.
The woman was accused of having killed 40 Turkish soldiers and one Turkish
officer with an axe. In prison, these people were badly tortured and beaten
so that they would confess, but none did as there was nothing to confess to.
The woman was given the chance of naming other Bulgarians who had killed
Turks. As she couldn't name such people, she was tortured. They beat them
three times a day from the beginning up until September 14, when they also
imprisoned me, and all bound together, they drove us all the way to prison
in Adrianople.'

'One
week after taking us away, on September 22 to be precise,

33

one hour
before dawn, the Turks told all our peasants to go out and wait in their
yards. We had no idea, one man of Inice said, what was going to happen. We
were all out in our yards. They drove up army carts, one for every three
households, and told us to load our belongings on to the carts. Of course,
nobody had any possessions to load up. An hour later the order was given for
all the peasants to be led outside the village, followed by soldiers with
fixed bayonets. And so they drove us all to the mountains of Malko Turnovo,
which is 12 hours distant, and left us there, empty-handed and hungry. Only
one man. Yani Mihailov and his wife Maria and their three children were kept
in the village to be converted to Islam. This same Mihailov had been
imprisoned and tortured from the very beginning, and being told that his
life would be spared if he converted, he said fearing for his life that he
wanted to become a Moslem. The Turks acted in the same way in the
surrounding Bulgarian villages, and drove them off to the mountains of Malko
Turnovo. which had not yet been occupied by Bulgarian troops. There are
thousands of unfortunate Bulgarians in the mountains there now, and they
will die of starvation and cold if nothing is done to help them soon.'

As I
have mentioned, the Turkish military commanders re-occupying Thrace acted
according to detailed prior instructions on how to take the entire
possessions of the Bulgarian population and to use it to finish the
field-work before carrying out the final part of their fiendish plan, which
was to entirely clear the Bulgarian population out of Thrace. The plan,
which was excellently carried out in Inice. was executed in the same way in
the other villages, with minor adjustments depending on the local situation
and to some extent on the humanity of the executors themselves. It is
astonishing that the Turks are capable of carrying through such a plan so
craftily and uniformly. This could be seen by the detailed evidence I
gathered from inhabitants of many of the Thracian Bulgarian villages, as set
forth below.

Arnautkoy was a wholly Bulgarian village of 111 houses and 446 inhabitants,
34 km from Ortakoy. In Ortakoy I met priest Hristo Yanakiev (61), born in
Arnautkoy, from whom I learned the details of the terrible fate that befell
his village. Priest Yanakiev did not stay until the end, but fled to Ortakoy
before the burning of the village. I got further details from Mr Kostadin
Neftyanov, manager of the agrarian bank in Ortakoy. who had visited
Arnautkoy and learned about its unhappy lot. and from Dimiter D. Kairyakov,
also native of Arnautkoy, who gave me a list of the dead.

On July
9 the people of Arnautkoy, foreseeing the danger posed to them mainly by the
Turkish population of the surrounding Turkish villages, set out for the old
Bulgarian border with their carts and cattle, reaching the Bulgarian village
of Popovo (Papaskoy). But the Turks of the surrounding villages craftily
encouraged them to return, assuring them that they would protect them from
any Bashi-bazouks that might appear. The people of Arnautkoy believed them
and returned. Three or four days passed, and these same Turks rushed into
the village and started robbing them. The peasants were all prosperous
farmers. The people of Arnautkoy are good silkworm-breeders and
tobacco-growers. They have tended up to 200 ounces of silkworm eggs, and
obtained about 10,000 kg of cocoons. .'Priest Yanakiev was there when on
July 15 Bashi-bazouks came in from the Turkish villages of Derekoy, Demirler,
Alaguzel, Gulekoy, Akoasar, Essekoy and elsewhere. 'There were many of
them', he recalled. 'Like ants, some arriving, others leaving. They looted
everything — sheep, cattle, people's belongings, leaving nothing behind.
People were beaten up. The peasants dispersed to the surrounding villages,
some even came Jo Ortakoy. They chased everyone away so that nobody could
see who had taken what. The looting lasted for a week. Then I fled to
Ortakoy.' According to Neftyanov, the Turks first took the cattle from the
common; then a Turkish deputation from the neighbouring Turkish villages
came demanding 100 liras to guard the village. The villagers paid up, but at
the same time decided to disperse, and for the men to flee for their lives.
Almost the entire male population escaped into

35

the
hills, while the women remained in the village. D. Kairyakov said that after
that a company of Turkish infantry, came into the village, committing
terrible atrocities and burning the village. According to Neftyanov, these
were not ordinary Bashi-bazouks, but Bashi-bazouks dressed in army uniform.
They probably included many of the prisoners whom the Bulgarian government
had just released, and who as we have seen, wore uniform and took part in
looting and violence against the Bulgarian population of other villages too.
They started torturing people for money and raped women, even little girls.
These horrors lasted a whole week (today there are said to be many women
still suffering from the after-effects of those events). The Turks from the
surrounding villages did the threshing with their own animals, and after
taking everything from the village, rounded up the women in the garden of
the present mayor Stoyan Buchvarov, near the church, and there they shot
45 women and children, and butchered about 20 other women and children in
different parts of the village. Two more women were found dead on the road
to Kazakh in a valley, one of whom had been hacked in the back of the neck.
It is certain that many women and girls of Arnautkoy were also abducted, but
this cannot be precisely established. In Buchvarov's house the women lay in
a heap, the bodies forming a mound as they had pressed one against another,
and later on when the villagers returned they simply heaped earth on top,
since the corpses were frightfully decayed. The mound is still there today.
There is no family in Arnautkoy which has not lost at least one of its
members. The men and some of the women managed to escape in the woods. Only
about 16 men were killed. The total number of victims. young and old, is 75.
The village was burned; of 111 houses, 102 were completely destroyed. Only 9
houses, the meanest of all. remained. The school, a fine two-storeyed
building, was burned down. The church was only burned on the inside, and the
walls and roofs are in good condition.

Now most
of the people of Arnautkoy live scattered in the neighbouring Turkish
villages, whose inhabitants fled before the Bulgarian re-occupation. These
are the villages of Derekoy (now Beli Dol), Sensikoy, Gorni Akchahissar,
Dolni Akchahissar and Gulerkoy (Rozino). The Ortakoy Colonisation Commission
is letting them live there until the village of Arnautkoy is re-built.

We do
not know exactly what terrible ordeals the Bulgarian people went through in
the dark, distant past of Turkish rule in similar situations, fleeing before
savage, brutal hordes, but in my view the sufferings of the unfortunate
Bulgarian refugees as they escaped from the hands of the Bashi-bazouks at
Ferrai until they reached the Bulgarian border at Yatadjik (now Madjarovo)
on the river Arda, and of the other refugees fleeing in a different
direction and falling into the hands of the Turks, exceed in horror the
worst mass slaughters to which the Bulgarians had been subjected

37

even in
the historic Batak massacre. Because in the latter, the people killed were
from limited area and it took place within a short period of time, whereas
here the sufferings and killings affected a larger population of both sexes
from about 17 Bulgarian villages, and went on with the utmost mercilessness
for long period of time.

In order
to gain a better idea of the sufferings of the fleeing Bulgarian population,
and of the loss of life sustained on the way, especially during the crossing
of the river Arda, I shall cite eyewitness accounts by people who themselves
were among the refugees and suffered.

* * *

Chanko
Mitrev
of the village of Yanouren (now Oreon, near Xanthi) described in Soflu in
detail what he and his family went through between Dedeagach and Ferrai, and
from there to the Bulgarian border. They travelled all day from Ferrai to
Urumcik; on the way the Turks of the neighbouring villages stole their
cattle. During the night in Urumcik, the Turkish officers leading the
Bashi-bazouks forced the notables of every village to pay them some money.
They reached Ferrai by noon. As the people proceeded, those who lagged
behind due to exhaustion or sickness were killed. Ahead of the refugees were
only six Turkish cavalrymen, with more on cither side, and the most behind,
but the total number of Turks was not greater than 400 or 500. After the
Bulgarian chetas (bands) had dispersed the Bashi-bazouks, some people
managed to get away, and whoever could ran off into the hills. The majority
who did not want to leave their cattle and carts, were subsequently attacked
by Bashi-bazouks and killed, while the captured women were taken across the
Maritsa. Chanko Mitrev continued:

"When we
took to the hills, Rousse Slavov came back towards us and reached us. Under
the protection of Slavov and Madjarov, those who had got away from Ferrai,
and others who had not succeeded in reaching Dedeagach, from different
villages, headed for Bulgaria. For about three or four days we assembled at
the meeting-place of Kurtbali, a hill in the Duganhisar mountains. Not
everybody knew about it, and so about three or four thousand people remained
in the mountains. When we set off, we were hit

38

by a
cold downpour mixed with snow — it was terrible. We continued blindly
through the forest for most of the night. Many mothers left their children
on the way. The chetnik leaders followed behind and picked them up.
Rousse, who had gathered 4 or 5 children, tried to find the mothers. But
none of them came forward, ashamed that they had committed a sin, and afraid
that they would have to carry them and leave them behind again. Rousse did
not agree to leave the children behind, and made various chetniks
take them... Hunger set in, and there was no bread. Nobody had enough food
with them, and some tried to eat acorns. Nobody could light a fire to roast
the acorns in case the Turks spotted them. We passed through Turkish
villages in the night.

"As we
approached the border on the Arda, Bashi-bazouks came up from all sides.
They were from the Ortakoy and other districts. We were an hour away from
the Arda when the Bashi-bazouks caught up with us. Again Rousse Slavov and
Madjarov engaged in battle. They had ordered everyone to charge ahead, as
the bullets had finished, and whoever could get through would be saved. We
all surged forwards. The number of children that were left behind then! We
waded across the Arda. Whoever found a shallow part crossed, while the
others drowned. I can't tell you how many women, children and girls drowned
in the Arda then! Where I crossed the river it was up to my waist. We linked
our hands in groups of five or six. Whoever didn't hold on was swept away by
the water. As we crossed the river, the Bashi-bazouks kept on shooting at
us. When we got out on the other side many more people were hit by bullets.

"When we
had crossed the river we were met by Bulgarian soldiers. They started
shooting too. We thought that they were Turks. When they realised what was
going on the Bulgarian soldiers ran up to the river and pulled out whoever
they could. And those of us who could helped save the others. My 20-year-old
son himself pulled two 8-year-old children out of the river. He carried them
like corpses, one recovered, but the other died. Nobody knows which villages
the children were from.

"The
Turks stayed there on the opposite bank and kept on firing. They hung around
there for about four days, picking up the goods that had been left behind.
Some people had left their horses there. Many wounded women and children
remained behind too,

39

many of
whom were killed, and the women raped. It was horrible — cries to God for
help and gunfire — it was a terrible business!

'When we
had crossed into Bulgaria, they accommodated us m various districts. Now
we've come back here to Soflu and beg from Greek homes...'

* * *

In
Duganhisar I met Mitre Stamatov Arkoumarev, 31 years old, born in the
same village, one of the most outspoken chetnik: in Madjarov's band, who did
a lot to protect the people fleeing towards the Arda and who himself was
seriously wounded. He had previously been on the regional revolutionary
committee, working with the chetnik leaders Arnaoudov and Vulcho
Andonov, who first founded the Duganhisar organization. Before that, Mitre
Stamov was a shepherd. He was a volunteer in the 1912 war, and took part in
the capture of Yaver Pasha. When the Bulgarian troops withdrew in 1913, he
joined Madjarov's chetnik detachment, with which he fought in the
battle of Okuf on August 7, and he distinguished himself especially at the
last battle of Ferrai on September 23 to save the people from the
Bashi-bazouks. On September 26 he fought at Balvadji, between the villages
of Pisman and Cukuren against Turkish troops with Rousse's detachment, as we
have seen above in the account of the capture at the Maritsa of many women
and girls from Pisman. Afterwards, when the people assembled at Rayovitsa
and Kour-baluka to head for the Bulgarian border, Mitre joined Madjarov in
protecting the people, his wife and children remaining in the crowd with his
brother. When they approached the Arda, near the village of Yatadjik, his
wife and children vanished along with his old mother. 'At the time', said
Mitre, 'I was nearby with Madjarov's men, fighting to protect the people
right by the Arda. All through the night we carried children across on our
backs: I alone carried 27 children. The next morning my brother Groud told
me that my wife and the two kids and my grandmother were missing. A man from
Pisman found me at Akbasi, from which the population had saved itself, and
told me that my wife and children have been killed. Someone else too had
said to pass the news on to me. Although I made a lot of queries, I didn't
find out anything."

40

The
chetnik leaders Madjarov and Angel Todorov (from the village of Okuf)
added to the above picture more similar facts: 'On October 4 we brought the
people across, and on the 8th of October we went back, ahead of the
Bulgarian re-occupation troops. As soon as we crossed the border on the
river Arda we saw hideous sights. In the village of Yatadjik we found a girl
from Manastir wounded in the leg, and an old woman and some little children
who couldn't tell us who they were or where they were from. They looked at
us in terror. We left the children there. Velyo Balamezov (from Haskovo) of
Madjarov's detachment tied up the girl's wound. Vulko Groudov, from Balikoy,
found his 4-year-old daughter in Yatadjik; she ran from her father and
everyone else, unable to recognise him in fear. Her father caught her and
put her on his donkey. Andrei Georgiev of Okuf, found his wife south of
Yatadjik. She had been wounded in the leg and left behind, dead. The Turks
had found her, tortured her, cut off her breasts and in the end killed
her. Further to the south, in a valley, were the bodies of about 100 women
and children; among them were little children that had been held upside down
and beaten against the ground until they were dead. Other children,
little babies in swathing clothes, had been crushed by having heavy rocks
placed on top of them. Most of the bodies, which had started decaying, were
those of women and children. To the south, on a rise one and a half hours
from Yatadjik, we found a wounded 12-year-old boy — the bullet had gone
through both his legs, and the wound was full of maggots — it was
frightening to look at. His sister had been with him, but on hearing voices
had run away and hidden in the forest. The boy told us his sister was there;
we called her name in Bulgarian in the woods, but she didn't turn up. He
also said there were other people in the forest, but they didn't show
either. We cut down two trees, made a stretcher and carried the boy to
Papazkoy (Popovo), where we left him to the villagers to look after. We were
unable to dress the wound. As the soldiers were following behind us, we
ordered that the army surgeon dress his wound. What happened with the child
afterwards we don't know. He was from Pisman, and his father was Hadji
Novak's brother-in-law to whom we gave the word.'

'Later,
in the Tahtadjik mountains, we found dead children left

41

by the
wayside at Kurbaalik, at the assembly-point — for example, there were two
dead babies in nappies, abandoned. At a nearer spot there was a new-born
baby, left there naked.'

* * *

The
Bulgarian troops, who marched along three routes, also saw similar hideous
sights everywhere, but unfortunately there was nobody who realised that
everything should have been recorded and photographed. As some of the
commanders of the re- occupation detachments told me, it did not occur to
them to take cameras with them.

This was
confirmed by Dr. Anastasov, who was with the 27th regiment and whom I met in
Mustafapasha on November 22, 1913. He told me that the route his regiment
had followed was strewn with the corpses of massacred Bulgarians. They saw
the largest number of corpses at Kocasli, near the village of Kodjakoy. Here
they found the corpses of whole families, children and girls who had been
raped and then killed. There were large number of corpses by some vineyards,
and even more in a valley. The doctor suggested that Lieutenant Sh. form a
commission to look around these areas, to ascertain what atrocities had been
perpetrated and to record them. But he was ignored, under the pretext that
the officers were tired. There was not a single camera in the regiment.

The
above evidence allows us to conclude how many refugees died in those
godforsaken places, about which nobody was able to report anything
afterwards. Many of the missing people can be ascertained from their
villages, but not all of them, because not all the people of a village came
together afterwards, but lived in different places, thus making it
impossible to figure out the accurate number of people killed and missing.
As we shall see further on, on February 20, 1914 a sensation was caused by
the news that the decayed corpses of 37 women, girls and children, massacred
about a month earlier, had been discovered in a valley near the village of
Avren, Kusukavak district. Who were these wretches, and where were they
from? At the time I tried to answer that question, [3] and
I still hold the same views today.

Before
the population that had fled at the battle of Ferrai headed for Bulgaria,
some of them, mostly from Sicanli, stopping for a rest in the
Armagan-Cesmesi valley near Kurbaalik in the Duganhisar mountains, was
attacked by 200 Turkish soldiers who were about to set on fire and loot the
only surviving Bulgarian village, Pisman (Pessani). The Turkish detachment,
which had left the village of Badouren (Patara), attacked the people, first
shooting, and then stabbing whoever they caught up with bayonets and
daggers. Most of the victims were from Sicanli, as I myself was able to
ascertain from travel permits and other documents I found on some of the
refugees, some of which, still well preserved, I took with me (on December
1, 1913). In the end the Turks captured a number of women — about one
hundred — whom they drove to the river Maritsa. This happened on September
25. The captives were first taken to Pisman, where they spent the night. The
Turkish force set fire to the village and killed some old people who were
still there. The next day some of the same force, recovered after the rest,
went back to hunt down the population which had fled the village. After a
short skirmish, the villagers retreated as their cartridges had finished,
and the Turks managed to capture about 30 women and girls of Pisman. With a
great deal of booty they took them to Kavadjik. Then Rousse's detachment,
which had found out late about this, blocked their path and made a surprise
attack on them near the Turkish village of Cukuren, dispersing them and
freeing the unhappy women, and even taking some sheep and goats.

I heard
shocking details about the massacre in the Armagan valley in Ferrai,
Dedeagach and Gumuljina, and as some people said that although two months
had passed since then (25 September), the corpses of the victims, which
included many children, still lay there unburied and also no commission had
yet been to the 'Valley of Death1, as some called it, to establish exactly
what had happened. I decided to go there to see for myself, even though it
was winter and I would have to ride across a difficult terrain in the
mountains over Duganhisar. And so on November 29, 1913 I set out from
Dedeagach for Duganhisar via the village of Dervent, whence I set out on the
next day accompanied by D.

43

Madjarov,
the former chetnik leader, and the photographer Georgi Traichev, for
Armagan.

First I
should like to mention some details about the Armagan massacre which I heard
in Gumuljina from Hristo Damyanov (age 40), of Sicanli, who had been
among those attacked in the Armagan Valley.

'After
they burned our village, our people fled to Dedeagach. from where they took
us with the rest of the people to Ferrai. During the battle we of Sicanli,
who had stuck together, went off into the mountains. There were also people
from Kizlar, Atkoy and Manastir with us. I was in the Armagan valley where
about 800 men, women and little children had stopped to rest and eat when we
were attacked. They were regular troops, with some darkies and
Circassians. As soon as they started firing at us., we ran off right and
left along the river, and most people headed for the hamlet. I stayed behind
and went left along the gully towards Baduren, but seeing that Turks were
coming from that direction, 1 hid in the undergrowth and stayed put. From
there I saw just opposite me how the Anatolians stopped Petko Mitrev (60)
and his daughter Zlata (16) and killed them. First they hit him with a
rifle-butt, and then they stabbed him in the back. I was nearby and saw
everything well: first of all three men stopped them and searched them for
money; then they let them go and shot at them, and after that they went
back to finish them off with daggers and bayonets. Down in the river
they killed Georgi Sedmakov; he was hit in the neck and had his arm
cut off. As I sat there in the undergrowth I could see them catching up with
them, searching them and finally shooting them. I also saw them kill
Nedyalko Matoushev, Delko Vulkov, and Vulko Sarchev (20).'

Damyanov's eye-witness account gives us a very fleeting idea of the massacre
in the Armagan valley. He only saw what went on near him; however the very
few examples he gives of the murders was very valuable information,
especially for me, as I was able with its help to establish the names of
some of the victims whose bodies still lay there.

On
December 1 I reached the Sardjov hamlet, which is actually a farm. To the
left of the fence we found on a rug a skeleton, not quite decayed, of a
child which must have been about one year old. Outside the fence we found
the remains of two girls aged 5

44

or 6.
They had been eaten by dogs, and only half of the skulls had survived; one
girl still had her smock on, and her underclothes were intact. Beside them
were two copper kettles and two embroidered towels. The hair of the two
girls was tangled together. Nearby we discerned another skull, the remains
of a small child's backbone and a smock. As I found out later, the two
corpses were what remained of 10 children whom the frightened fleeing people
had left behind and whom a kind-hearted shepherd, Sardjo Mitrev, had taken
in to look after, however the Turks killed him a few days afterwards, as we
shall see below.

At about
noon we reached the Armagan valley, which is overgrown with thick shrubs.
Here we came across signs of the massacre at every step: skeletons, of which
many were of children which had been eaten by dogs, and separate skulls
scattered around; stockings, smocks, and various clothes — ripped women's
chemises and red scarves. Down by the river were more scattered women's
clothes, especially red ones, twisted rear aprons of the kind worn by the
women of Sicanli and Manastir, women's belts, strings of beads and chemises.
In one place there were scattered Turkish documents with stamps and travel
permits, of which I collected a dozen of the better ones. [4]
Further down we found the corpses of three babies, half-decayed, with the
skull of one missing. When we headed upstream, to the left in the
undergrowth we found the bodies of a man and a young woman; the woman's
skull lay a little further away and had been stripped white by dogs. The man
had fallen on his back, stabbed in the back, and his clothes had been
shredded and his shirt was bloodstained. Of course, the bodies exuded a
terrible stench, but Mr. Traichev and I endured it as long as was required
to clear away the surrounding undergrowth in order to make a more or less
clear photograph possible.

When the
Turks of the Gumuljina district realised that Western Thrace would remain
under Bulgarian rule, they started to loot shops, the richest of which were
in Gumuljina and Iskece (now Xanthi). First they looted the tailor's shops,
which sold ready-to-wear Turkish clothes, and used them to clothe their
'militiamen' who had come from the demarcation line to be disbanded, as well
as many of the local Turks of the town. The tailors of Gumuljina alone, all
Bulgarians from Petkovo and Karloukovo

45

(Ahircelebi
district) have lost about two and a half million levs alone. And the losses
of Bulgarian tailors in Iskece, most of them from Daridere (now Zlatograd)
and Raikovo (Ahircelebi district), were enormous — amounting to, so they
say, five million levs. Grocer's goods were also looted. The loot was sold
at very low prices. Even on the day that our cavalry detachments entered
Gumuljina, loot was being sold on the high street. Renegades of the Young
Turks organization had come specially from Salonica to buy. Here a dubious
role was played by the Banque Salonique, whose director, a young man, was a
great Turkophile. Through the Jewish merchants Karaso and Nahmiyaz (now a
supplier for the Bulgarian army), the bank supplied the Jews with money with
which to buy up most of the looted goods very cheaply, e.g. an oka (1283
grams) of wool for only 4 pence (instead of the usual price of 9 to 12
pence). The Turkish ringleaders were in a hurry to make money, which
they deposited in the Ottoman Bank. The unsold goods, e.g. tobacco, was sent
by train to Adrianople.

The same
happened with the expensive and much-sought fleecy rugs, woollen cloaks and
homespun cloth, copper, wax, cheese and butter. One month after the arrival
of the Bulgarians the store of the Banque Salonique contained a large
quantity of looted Bulgarian copper. And when 1 was there the Jewish and
Turkish homes in Gumuljina and Iskece still had many of these goods stored
up. Of the big Jewish merchants only Karaso had fled to Constantinople.

Despite
the indescribable atrocities committed against the Bulgarians by the Turks
with the open support, and even at the initiative, of the so-called
"autonomous government", the Bulgarian occupation authorities, on
re-establishing themselves in the Gumuljina district, were extremely
tolerant towards the Turks, their first concern being to take measures to
prevent the desperate Bulgarian population from settling accounts with its
persecutors. There are only two or three cases of harsh retribution, and
these occurred two or three days before the new Bulgarian authorities had
fully established themselves in the region. Furthermore, our

46

military
authorities, acting in the spirit of the Treaty of Constantinople and the
additional 'capitulation' conditions, had gone so far in their zeal as to
arrest and imprison many of the suffering and worthy Bulgarians, acting on
accusations levelled by Turks. In Gumuljina, where it did not occur to
anybody to take to task the instigators of the massacres and the looting and
burning in the villages of Manastir, Sicanli, Kuzlar, Jusuyuk, Kalaycidere
etc., were imprisoned while I was there twelve men from Duganhisar and
elsewhere, such as Angel Stoev of the Slavov's cheta (he comes from
the destroyed village of Basklise, Soflu region), who carried out marvellous
selfless exploits in saving the Bulgarian population throughout the summer
until the arrival of the Bulgarian troops; Angel Mitrev, Stoyu Vulchev (of
Duganhisar), Kosta Petkov and Stamo Nedelkov (of Merhamli) and others. In
the royal edict issued on October 16 to the population of the new lands, a
full amnesty was declared for 'all persons who took part in hostile
activities or committed political offences before the peace treaty.'

From
this text it is clear that the amnesty does not apply to ordinary crimes,
and by no stretch of the imagination to crimes committed after the signing
of the peace treaty on September 16. It was only three days before the
arrival of Bulgarian forces in the Gumuljina-region that the criminal attack
was made on the people hiding in the woods outside Manastir, after which the
Bashi-bazouks abducted 42 women and children. Probably our authorities did
not have a precise idea of the dates of the 'bloody events' which are
mentioned in the edict. The story of the commission sent to perform an
autopsy on the body of a Pomak in Merikos, the village inhabited by the most
bloodthirsty Pomaks — those who took part in the crime at Manastir, is most
characteristic evidence of the extent to which our authorities in the
Gumuljina region were informed of the area's most recent past.

Thus our
second period of rule in the new lands has begun under the aegis of the
greatest tolerance.

And even
if one accepts the indiscriminate decision not to allow any investigations
against the Turkish criminals, this does not mean that the question of
material compensation for the plundered Bulgarian population should not be
raised. Unfortunately, even in this respect there is no evidence of justice
or humanity, as the until recently prosperous Bulgarians have been left to
wallow

47

in the
ugliest poverty, forgotten by the world, without the slightest attempt being
made to restore at least some of their stolen property. I saw our
fellow-countrymen in the sorriest state. Gumuljina, Iskece, Dedeagach, Soflu,
Ortakoy, etc, were full of miserable 'refugees'. They have been accommodated
in some empty houses in these towns with no possessions or anything. I had
the occasion to visit some of their homes, and saw that most of them sleep
on the bare floor, without blankets, and wearing the summer clothes which
they fled in, blue from the cold and from poor food, living for months
just off dry bread. Some of them have also been accommodated in
villages, but there the conditions are not much better.

Such was
the situation in December 1913.

NOTES

1. Article 9 of the Treaty of Constantinople, signed on
September 16 (29) by the Bulgarian delegates Gen. Savov, G. D. Nachovich and
A. Toshev, and Turkish delegates Talaat Bey (Foreign Minister), Mahmud Pasha
(Navy Minister) and Halil Bey (Chairman of the State Council), state that
the Bulgarian communities in Turkey would enjoy the same rights as other
Christian communities in the Turkish Empire, and that Bulgarian subjects of
Turkey would retain all their movable and immovable property and would not
be hindered in exercising their human rights and their right to own
property. Those who had left their homes as a result of recent events would
be allowed to return within a period of two years.

However,
Article 18 also says that affixed to the treaty are two protocols concerning
the frontier. Paragraph C of this protocol states that the two governments
agreed to facilitate the exchange of the Bulgarian and Moslem populations
between both sides together with their property in a zone of not more than
15 kilometres along the entire common border. The exchange would be carried
out by entire villages. The exchange of rural and urban property would be
effected under the auspices of the two governments and with the
participation of the elders of the villages subject to exchange. Mixed
commission appointed by the two governments would carry out the exchange and
provide compensation if the necessity of such arose from differences in the
exchange of goods between villages and individuals (translated from the
French).

48

2. Women from Bulgarkoy who had come from Sahinlar to
Dedeagach to be present at Old Dimiter's account helped to list the
massacred women.

3. Cf. Slovo, No. 39. 22 February 1914 and my
article 'Whose Are the Bodies of the Massacred Women and Children Found in
the Gumuljina Region?'

4. All these Turkish documents turned out to belong to
people from Sicanli. Their names are: Georgi Doichev, Nikola Georgiev, Vulko
Petkov, Dimiter Georgiev, Kera Georgieva, Rizo Vulkov and Stano Ivanov.
There are several travel permits for each person. It would be interesting to
know whether they are still alive.